Lords of Grass and Thunder (40 page)

Captain Chahar peered up at the smoke hole over the firebox. “I expect she’ll meet us there,” he said, and shepherded his guardsmen on their way.

Bekter, too, stared up at the smoke hole for a moment, but then he seemed to come back to himself. “Best not keep the gur-khan waiting,” he said, as if he hadn’t been doing just that.

Qutula seethed with fury at his brother, a fury fueled by the token of his lady on his breast, which had woken to renewed pain.

“If you have ruined all our plans with your choice of bed partner, I will kill you myself,” he said.

Bekter looked at him as if he were a riddle he was only now beginning to solve. “Perhaps you should rethink your plans,” he said, but softly, more to himself than Qutula.

There seemed nothing else to do, then, but turn on his heel and leave his brother to follow. But as he took up the reins and headed for the ger-tent palace, Qutula resolved to turn the shamans’ plots to his own use. He’d have felt better about that plan if he knew where Bolghai had taken the girl.

The storm had nearly passed when Bolghai turned away from the shrine that marked the pyre of the fallen khan. Great Sun was setting, the low slanting rays creating arches of rainbows beneath the solemn clouds. The prince had demanded his promise to keep an eye out for the apprentice Eluneke, but the most dangerous part of the trip was over. The gods hadn’t rejected her, or he’d have found her close to where she vanished, dead with the sign of the tree burned into her breast.

She’d be gone for three days, he figured, and if the past was anything to go by, she would find her way down again any place but where she’d climbed the tree. He figured the prince’s nature would call her home eventually. He could wait for that as easily in the comfort of the ger-tent palace as in the cold of a summer night. Besides, he missed his dinner. With that last grumbling thought, he fixed the palace in his mind, turned into his totem animal, and made his way home by the road between the worlds.

Chapter Twenty-five

P
RINCE DARITAI of the Tinglut ulus sat in state as an honored guest on the steps of the dais of the Qubal-Khan. At the right hand of Mergen, who now called himself gur-khan, Prince Tayyichiut rested his back against the shoulder of a guardsman with a quick and wary eye. On his left the Lady Bortu, khaness of her son the gur-khan and Great Mother to the clans, leaned her chin on her knee and froze the Tinglut ambassador like prey beneath her eagle gaze.

At the khan’s feet, but still above the firebox, sat Mergen’s court. Daritai’s own nobles had an honored place among the nobles and chieftains of the Qubal clans at the right of the dais, just below the little gathering of musicians, shamans, and fortune-tellers tucked away to the side. The shamaness in the raven robes had caught the khan’s attention, not happily, but he said nothing and politely kept his gaze from straying too often in her direction. Daritai figured he’d need to learn more about what was going on there before he made any recommendations to his father’s court.

While he sat among the Qubal in their ger-tent palace, his honor guard set up the Tinglut camp outside the city. He’d brought his eldest son, a sturdy hunter of twelve, along with five hundred warriors to set against ten thousand of the Qubal, if there was trouble. Around him, fifty of his picked warriors sorted themselves among the blue-coated Qubal who girdled the ger-tent palace with their backs to the lattices. An equal number guarded their fellows against a stray spear through the felted tent cloth from the outside. But if trouble came from within, Daritai was dead, as simple as that, though his men would see that he didn’t die alone. If the Qubal overran his camp, he had another son at home to inherit his property.

Not for the first time Daritai cursed his conniving half brother. Hulegu had the greater skill at diplomacy and should have been the negotiator for Tinglut-Khan’s new treaty-wife. But Hulegu had ambitions; he had seduced Tinglut’s warlike character with impossible schemes to conquer the Shan Empire. Then he’d remained at home, whispering poison in the khan’s ear, while Daritai was sent to accomplish the hopeless task and return in failure.

Daritai had fought the plan and lost. As he had known from the start, his ten thousands were a mere handful against the empire, already on the march to war in the Cloud Country. In a rage, his father had stripped him of his honors, including his place on the dais as heir. Hulegu now wore the silver cap and sat at his father’s right hand, his intention from the start.

Tinglut had other sons, however, and Hulegu wouldn’t risk his newfound favor with an absence from court, particularly to negotiate a marriage treaty. A new wife might mean new heirs, after all. So once again Daritai found himself confronting an impossible task for which he was ill suited, at which Hulegu doubtless wished him to fail.

He was a soldier; no strategist, just a tactician whose diplomatic skills narrowed to one: in his youth, Daritai had made an excellent spy. Face blandly free of his opinions, therefore, he let his glance travel over the decorations that adorned the foreign palace, collecting data for his khan. Mirrors in elaborate frames hung from the lattices. They hadn’t kept the demons out or saved the Lady Chaiujin, Daritai’s half sister, but they reflected the lamplight, giving an unearthly sheen to thick tapestries of silk and fine wool that covered the latticed walls in every direction.

The Tinglut-Khan preferred to express his love of war with many weapons both antique and modern as his decorations. Mergen’s blue-coated warriors, at attention along the lattices, carried sufficient armaments to balance the more peaceful appearance of his ger-tent palace, however. Daritai resolved to keep his guard up and gave a nod to one of his own warriors sharing duty along the lattices.

Imperceptible to any who didn’t expect it, the gesture marked the place where he would run if he needed a fast escape. The man set his hand casually on his knife hilt to show that he understood his duty, to slash an exit through the densely embroidered tent coverings at need. Planning for trouble had kept Daritai alive on the battlefield. It couldn’t hurt on a diplomatic mission either. Satisfied, he gave his attention to the dais, where servants had appeared bearing trays of food and drink.

The Lady Bortu, Mergen-Khan’s old witch of a khaness, was still watching him. To let him know that nothing escaped her attention, she turned with exaggerated care to the guardsman he had lately signaled. Then she repeated his own gesture, but with the large movements of an epic singer, setting the cascades of precious jewels that dripped from her ears and the horns of her matron’s headdress to clacking sharply one against another.

“I trust our cooks have understood the wishes of your steward, young prince.” The lady motioned at a tray with a gnarled hand, each twisted finger circled with a heavy ring.
Nothing escapes my notice, boy
, her eyes told him above a smile false as her teeth. Though he had seen more than thirty summers and fought in battles for half of them, he didn’t contradict her. Only that long experience kept him seated, though all his instincts told him to run when she looked at him that way.

“Excellent.” He picked through the bits of roasted meat and crumbled cheese displayed on a tray held out to him by the serving girl. Pies and other artful dishes also circulated among the khan’s party, but Daritai’s steward had made known to the Qubal cooks his preference for unmixed foods. Particularly in a foreign camp, such dishes were harder to poison. His steward had said nothing about the motives for his tastes, however. It wouldn’t do to give any ideas to this Mergen, who called himself gur-khan.

The old khaness knew, of course, just as she knew where he would run if negotiations went very badly. And what she knew, Mergen knew as well, though the khan’s smile was all a host’s welcome should be. If Tinglut-Khan chose war over marriage, he’d have to take out the old lady first thing, because Mergen took all his cues from her. Daritai kept his eyes downcast on the tray until he had his thoughts well hidden.

The serving girl provided the distraction he needed, leaning over him so that the back of his hand brushed her breast as he hesitated between choices on the tray. He knew that women found him a handsome man. His wives had often commented on the heat of his gaze, the manly proportion of his chest and thighs. And he had worn his best coats of beaten silk, black as night when Great Moon Lun had chased her little brothers over the horizon and embroidered everywhere with silver stars in the pattern of the summer sky, Great Moon herself emblazoned in an auspicious house. So he might have thought the girl favored him for her own pleasure. The Qubal-Khan looked on with a benign smile, however, offering more than mutton and curd for his satisfaction.

If he’d been inclined to ardor, Mergen’s interest in it would have dampened his enthusiasm. But he had more important matters on his mind, and old Bortu was looking at him as if he were a tasty rabbit. He imagined she might swoop down on him and snap his neck with her strong, sharp beak. Daritai therefore made his choice of meat and cheese and dismissed the girl, not unkindly, but with no invitation for later.

Casting about for a suitable conversational gambit, he settled on the sculptures in bronze and silver inlaid with coral and lapis that stood on carved and painted chests scattered above the firebox. One in particular drew his notice, a bust of Llesho, the god-king of the Cloud Country, whom the artist had depicted as an older man. The god-king had many allies, including the emperor of Shan who, while traveling to war against the South, had uncovered Tinglut-Khan plotting with the Uulgar raiders to overrun his empire.

In spite of their quarrel with the emperor of Shan, Daritai had led the Tinglut horde in the wars of the foreign gods to defend the mortal world from demons. He’d helped to win that one, but it hadn’t stopped his half brother from usurping his place next to Tinglut on the dais. Now he was reduced to bargaining over wives for the failing khan.

“I understand you traveled with the god-king Llesho himself.” He addressed the young Qubal prince with just a hint of a question and a wave of his hand in the direction of the bronze head. He’d never met a god himself nor any man who had. But the Qubal had a special bond through Prince Tayyichiut the Orphan. So he’d heard and the bronze head seemed to prove.

A twisty little smile touched the Qubal prince’s lips, not for Daritai, but for a memory painful for all its warmth. “He saved my life,” the prince said, rubbing absently at his belly.

Daritai recognized the track of Prince Tayyichiut’s hand. Some old wound lay hidden beneath the princely clothes; on occasion Daritai had followed that same anxious path of sword or spear across his flesh. Even now, like any soldier watching the prince, he was reminded of past pain, the old reflex to soothe it.
Does it still hurt much?
he wanted to ask, but courtesy forbid him even to notice the prince’s actions.

“Please pardon the Princess Orda’s absence.” With a careless nod, Mergen Gur-Khan ordered the dinner trays taken away. “I have sent for her, but she was visiting with relatives in a distant clan. I expect her party to return by morning.”

It was doubtless past her bedtime anyway, Daritai mused, though he didn’t phrase his objection in quite those words for the khan. A child bride, the Princess Orda would be an inconvenience until she reached a marriageable age and, brought up far from the court, could offer no useful intelligence to her new clans. He had such a one of his own to offer in reciprocal trade.

By the khan’s order, Daritai’s daughter of but four summers, who held his heart like a treasure box in her tiny hands, might go as a future bride to Mergen-Khan or his heir. The thought of his daughter raised among the Qubal, forgetting her beloved father and her own people, chilled him to his very liver. He didn’t think this khan would suffer such qualms about Chimbai’s girl child, but knew better than to trust the face a master such as Mergen Gur-Khan put upon a bargain.

“The child is sweet-natured and eager to learn.” As the Princess Orda’s grandmother, Lady Bortu made the offer. In the normal course of lesser matchmaking among the clans, the husband’s grandmother would dismiss the offer or show her interest in the prospective granddaughter-in-law. Then the negotiations for a dowry would begin in earnest. But Tinglut-Khan’s grandmother had been dust before Daritai drew his first breath. No ulus would have entrusted the Great Mother of the khan’s royal clan to a foreign power anyway, even under treaty.

Daritai sipped his kumiss and smiled to take the offense out of his next words. “Do not take my answer amiss,” he prefaced his response to the khaness with a diplomatically apologetic lift of his shoulder. “But time being what it is for the grandfathers among us, the Tinglut-Khan needs a wife for today, not a child to raise for tomorrow’s bed, even if she is the true child of the famed Chimbai-Khan, who now reigns in state among the ancestors.

“We might, of course, consider a match for the future at a later date.” The youngest of Daritai’s brothers, not much older than his own daughter, would need a wife eventually. But he hadn’t come to bind a treaty with the marriage beds of the next generation. His father was looking for the freshness of youth to rejuvenate his generative parts, as if he lacked heirs from among the ten legitimate sons and daughters he claimed by his current and former wives and concubines.